Ta-Da Tuesday #11

Happy belated Thanksgiving Everyone!

I've been trying to write this Ta-Da! Tuesday post all day today with very little success...

Anyway, now that the move to Memphis is pressing in on us -- and two of my larger projects with work are coming to a head here in the first week of December, I've been busier than ever.  My wonderful stash and needles -- those that aren't currently married to a project -- have all been packed up in two large trunks, a storage footrest in the living room, and a 3 drawer rolly cart thing in the closet.

So far the office and the one and a half bedrooms have been packed up.  We've gotten through the most time-consuming part of house ( the office) and are feeling a bit better now that we're on to things that pretty much just have to end up in a box somewhere.  We'll keep stray donate and toss boxes around the house but we're pretty much done with that...

Anyway, is this a Ta-Da! Tuesday or what?

This past weekend, SuperWife and I turned this beautifully blue colored office from this:

back into this:

I'm not a big fan of the institutional beige color that seemingly all rental places come in and since I work from home, the blue in the office was totally worth it.

Anyway, we're getting through it all!  Can't wait to get this circus moved and set back up...

Speaking of circuses -- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was really a great book.  Add it to your Christmas wishlist if you haven't already read it!

What are you working on in your fiber time these days?  

Leave a comment and keep me in the loop!

Happy Knitting Everyone!

Ta-Da! Tuesday #10 and Big/Busy/Scary News

Whew! the last week has been ridiculously busy.  There's no other way to describe it.  I feel like I've been running ever since I got home from SEMKR.  This past weekend, SuperWife and I cleaned like devils because we were having our Thanksgiving on Saturday (it was wonderful), because we are moving to Memphis around December 16th and our property manager was coming by on Sat. to inspect the house (he arrived, as property managers do, at the exact time we were scheduled to sit down and eat), and because we had to clean before we could start making piles of stuff that we refuse to move 900 miles (whether to throw away, donate, or sell).

I can already tell this whole moving thing is going to suck the life out of my knitting for the next month. :-( but there's not much that I can do about that.  SuperWife was offered a job at the Naval Air Station in Millington, TN and it's only 5 hours away from our home and families as opposed to the 22-24 hour drive we have from Virginia Beach.  It's the right thing to do, but it couldn't possibly come at a more stressful time.

So, my life is all boxes boxes boxes!  But back to the yarn -- does anyone have any suggestion for how to pack my stash so as to not invite any kind of bug into it?  I'm assuming I have to put everything in 2Gallon ziploc bags and then pack them in boxes...  Any better ideas out there?

My Ta-Da! today is small but beautiful.  I really love how this turned out:

It's a washcloth in a Lily Sugar and Creme Cotton in Denim...

If anyone knows any really great LYSs in the Memphis area, please share them!

Happy Knitting Everyone!

How are you all doing?  What are you working on?

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SWAG Wednesday!

Hey Everyone,

I've been thinking it over ever since I left the retreat on Sunday and I've decided that Knitters are happier people than average... I dunno if it's the proximity to all the natural fibers or what but I have rarely been in such an uplifting group as I was at SEMKR.  What do you all think?

Well yesterday I promised a post on all the great SWAG from the retreat so here it is:

We all got a very nice tote from Skacel -- it's very well organized and is built as well as you would expect...

I got quite a bit of sock yarn -- there's two large skeins of Regia Color, two more of Regia Galaxy Saturn, a skein of Riveting made from recycled blue jeans, and a skein of undyed Sheila's Sock from Wool2Dye4!

I also got a couple skeins of worsted weight Baby Alpaca and Jezebel from SWTC...

Finally, in the gift exchange, I won a stack of Jamieson's 2 ply 100% Pure Shetland Spindrift Wool!

Let's see, we also received some magazines and books:
      -The holiday issue of Love of Knitting
      -Cast On magazine
      -Skacel's Simplicity volume no. 3 - Men's Patterns featuring a Scarf/Hat/Glove set created by our coordinator, SmallTownKnitGuy!
      -Guy Knits from XRX
      -Zitron's Natural Yarn Children's pattern booklet

And finally there were some really great patterns donated:
      -Herbivore and Clockwork by Stephen West (Westknits)
      -Slip Stitch Wrist Warmers by Sheila Trunzo
      -And best of all, The Knitting Mill, created an exclusive sock pattern just for our retreat.  It goes on sale in Ravelry this week and part of the proceeds go toward sponsoring a scholarship to the retreat next year!

I also won a copy of Cat Bordhi's new Sweet Tomato Heel sock book -- also available on Ravelry.

I feel like there's a lot more that I'm forgetting about -- but let's just say that the retreat was a wonderful experience not to be forgotten and I'm really looking forward to next year's retreat already!

I also wanted to share some photos of the retreat center:

I also forgot to mention Doug's small intro to spinning lesson!

And his awesome Perpen-sock-ular Socks!

Well that's it for this week folks... I've got a lot of work and sleep to catch up on...

Happy Knitting Everyone!

Retreat Tuesday!

Hey All!  It's been a whirlwind the last 7 days with lots of driving, lots of work, and a TON of fun!

Since last week's Ta-Da! Tuesday, I've worked hard on the days I've worked but I also had a 4 day weekend in there so it wasn't too bad ;-)

This is a long post so bear with me!

On Friday, I left the house at 5 am to drive just north of Greenville, SC to the Asbury Hills Retreat Center for the First Annual South East Men's Knitting Retreat (SEMKR)!  We had about 20 guys gathered together for this first time event and we had a blast!

The retreat center was beautiful, the food was good basic Southern fare, the weather was wonderful  and still the company out-shined everything else combined.  We really did have the best time and the only complaint was that it was too short...

We had a fiber dyeing class:

 

 

and a Socks-from-the-Toe-Up class:

and a Fair Isle class:

and a Twined Knitting class:

         (I'm pretty sure I could smell burning toast during that complicated exercise... lol)


and last, but not least, we took a field trip to a beautiful Alpaca farm and fiber mill in Inman, SC:

  Remember on cartoons when a hungry character sees a bird as a walking roast chicken?  

I swear all I saw were skeins of hand-spun yarn when I looked at this guy!

Then it was just an 8 hour drive back on Sunday... Returning to work on Monday was difficult -- apparently programming isn't really my calling ;-)  Although I hear retreat withdrawal is a real thing and that fondling one's fibery S.W.A.G. (Stuff We All Get) helps... lol.

Speaking of SWAG, come back tomorrow for a post on all the amazing things donated by the retreat sponsors!  It's a mound of riches, let me tell you....

Happy Knitting Everyone!